Spain quip adds to Romney's foreign policy trouble

Source: ap

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He irritated Britons and Palestinians during a summer tour abroad and has declared Russia to be America's No. 1 geopolitical foe. Just last week, the Republican candidate, who plans a foreign policy speech Monday, raised eyebrows in Spain by holding it up as a prime example of government spending run amok.

That left Spaniards confused, and threatened to reinforce Romney's perceived handicap in international affairs, precisely at a time when lingering questions over the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, has President Barack Obama on the defensive.

&quot;I don't want to go down the path of Spain,&quot; Romney said Wednesday night during the first presidential debate. He argued that government spending under Obama has reached 42 percent of the U.S. economy, a figure comparable with America's NATO ally. &quot;I want to go down the path of growth that puts Americans to work.&quot;

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No one contests that Spain's situation is dire, its economy in deep recession and unemployment hovering around 25 percent. But Spain's level of government spending is actually low by European standards, and significantly less than Germany and Scandinavian countries with far healthier economic prospects. Spain's woes were chiefly caused by the collapse of a property bubble that had fueled more than a decade of booming economic growth.

Spanish reaction to Romney was swift.

&quot;What I see is ignorance of what is reality, but especially of the potential of the Spanish economy,&quot; said Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.

So here are the top ten lessons we can draw from Romney’s ongoing War on Europe:

1. Mitt Romney is the least diplomatic politician in America, having by now managed to imply that the British might not be up to hosting the Olympics, that Russia is our Enemy No. 1, that the Palestinians do not exist, and that Spain’s economic woes come from budget deficits.

2. Romney doesn’t know anything about Europe’s economic crisis, since in fact Spain’s government ran lower deficits than most European countries in the run-up to the 2008 crisis.

3. Romney consistently tries to shift blame for any problem away from the private sector onto the government, even when this approach involves out-and-out falsehoods.

9. Romney only seems to trust ‘Anglo-Saxons.’:

It was what came next that shocked the world on Tuesday. Swain writes:

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have”.